


Katniss Becomes a Woman

by 2manylarks



Category: The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Family Issues, Puberty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-24 13:14:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1606466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2manylarks/pseuds/2manylarks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Originally written from Prompts in Panem (PiP) day Hyacinth</p>
            </blockquote>





	Katniss Becomes a Woman

Katniss looked quickly over her shoulder, darting glances back and forth, before jerking under the fence. She stood up and started moving away from the possibility of being caught. She had only been into the woods a dozen or so times in the last few months. Now, with summer starting to heat up the days, she was just getting used to her routine of seeing Prim safe to home after school, changing clothes, and casually walking to the gap in the fence. She made sure she took a different route each day, and she never lingered.

 

It still worried her, but knowing Prim depended on her for dinner always kept her moving forward. In fact, 12 year old Katniss was getting so used to moving forward she was trying to plan for winter while walking home. The months might just be getting warm, but she knew the wood’s wouldn’t always supply her with the bounty they had today. She would have to check the plant book her father left for information about winter plants, and how to store some roots.

.

In the midst of her musing Katniss saw a little yellow flower and bent down to pick it for Prim, but as she bent down she suddenly felt something. Her pants… were wet. The fabric pressed against her as she leaned down, and there was no mistaking the strangeness of the feeling. She balanced herself and bent over before jumping upright. There was a spot. She hurried home trying to press her legs together while still walking forward, which made her steps little and her hip motions jerky. She walked without looking around and instead stared at the ground keeping her face expressionless.

 

When Katniss got home she headed straight to the bathroom. She pulled off her pants, and pumped the sink full of water. Dropping the clothes in the sink Katniss began to dig through the battered cupboard underneath. She knew her mother kept some rags in the cupboard for this. This… woman’s problem. She had heard about it at school, and in a house as small as theirs there was no such thing as privacy.

 

She KNEW the rags were supposed to be in this cupboard, but where were they! Panicked Katniss carefully tore off 2 sheets of precious toilet paper. She had just saved up enough money trading greens and a squirrel to buy the soft paper that was brought into district 12, which they hadn’t had since shortly after the accident. Not long after her mom wouldn’t get out of bed they had run out, and Katniss knew they needed all their money for food. Scrap paper Katniss brought home from school and rags worked, but it wasn’t pleasant. She had a goal that they never run out of toilet paper again.

 

Clutching the edge of the sink Katniss struggled to breathe evenly. Her throat caught and she swallowed down the small gasping noise. What was she going to do without the rags?

 

Knock, knock. “Katniss?”

 

Katniss’ head shot up. Her mother! She would have to tell her. Hopefully she knew where the rags were and hadn’t misplaced them. Katniss knew she could find them if she could just calm down. For now though she needed to cover herself. Grabbing one of the dull colored towels hanging on the wall she wrapped it around her middle.

 

“Yes, Mom?” She said as she opened the door, trying to sound like nothing was happening.

 

“Katniss, is everything alright?” Her mom calmly stepped into the room while speaking. Subconsciously Katniss clenched her legs knowing the slips of toilet paper weren’t going to cut it much longer.

 

“I…ah….” Katniss mumbled and looked down blushing a dusty rose color.

 

Her mom looked into the sink and swirled the garments gently before glancing at the cupboard, which had obviously been ransacked

.

“Ah. Katniss.” And then she did the last thing Katniss had been expecting, she smiled. “Welcome to womanhood Katniss.” She reached into the cupboard into a rough wood box Katniss had missed and passed Katniss a rag.

 

“There is one more in there, and I’m currently boiling the rest. We will have to see about trading for some more now…” Her mom got a little lost in thought. She shook her head and smiled softly before walking out.

 

After Katniss had handled things and scrubbed at her clothes with a bar of soap. She left them soaking in the sink, and went after new clothes. She walked into the kitchen where her mother was working at the stove. She had left her sack from the woods on the table, and the roots and new baby spring greens had to be dealt with. Normally she would have gone straight to a few friendly faces to trade for other food stuffs, but she would have to go now.

 

As she was putting her boots back on her mother turned around. “Katniss. I thought maybe we could make do with the greens today, and we could talk now.” The way she asked wasn’t exactly a question but it definitely wasn’t a statement.

 

“Uhm…” Katniss quickly calculated all the things she kept track of. There wasn’t anything that couldn’t be put off, though she was loathe to miss the opportunity to trade, but it she hadn’t found anything too valuable today. “Ok.” There was no point in asking what her mother wanted to talk about. She moved to sit down at the table.

 

Her mom sat down and fiddled with the dish towel still in her hands. The towel had long ago faded to grey, which seemed to emphasize the pale redness of her mother’s hands. They were cracked and dried. Katniss wondered if the plant book had information on a balm to fix that, as she avoided looking at her mother.

 

“They,” her mom cleared her throat, “they talked to you at school about this right?” She asked at last.

 

“Yes.” Katniss answered quietly not looking up from the towel.

 

“Well, do you have any questions?”

 

“No.”

 

“How about pains? Have you had any cramps? Or sometimes its back pains.” Katniss looked up at her mother, because her tone had changed. She spoke with a more practiced and precise voice. Gone was the insecurity that usually colored her words, and back was a woman Katniss barely remembered. A woman who helped sick neighbors and answered the door late at night when someone went into labor, or had gotten hurt. That woman hadn’t been around for awhile.

 

“No…” Katniss began to say before pausing. “When I woke up I had a, uh, an ache. Is that cramps?” She asked shyly.

 

“Most likely.” Her mother answered. “Sometimes they are more noticeable sometimes less. If you don’t have strong pains you will be lucky. Many women are plagued by incessant pain. Back in the old days there was good medicine to help, but I don’t even remember them. They’re just something my dad used to talk about before the real medicine became too scarce. There is, however, a good tea we can make that will help. I’ll write you a list, and you can keep an eye out for the plants when you go into the woods.”

 

Katniss stilled. She’d never had a conversation with her mother about going into the woods. She hadn’t expected her to care.

 

“That way when the pains come on we will already have the right things. Also, I know there are many women who would be willing to trade for such a tea. The pain and bleeding, is one thing we all share as women.” She stopped talking and appraised Katniss who sat as calm as a deer. Katniss watched her mom take a deep breath before beginning again. “You know what this all means? Regarding babies and boys?”

 

She looked directly at Katniss with a surprising amount of strength. Katniss managed a small nod her blush radiant as it crept closer and closer to her hairline.

 

“I know that boys and babies seem a long way into the future,” Katniss nodded more enthusiastically, though her mind quickly flashed to the boy who sat in front of her in math. Peeta Mellark was kind and quiet, and while she had never talked to him she would never forget him. The burnt bread he had tossed to her one in night in the rain had been a turning point in her life. The day she decided to survive. Also in math class he always smelled a lightly of fresh bread. It was a nice smell. “But one day sooner than you think you’ll be thinking about boys.” Katniss’ blush intensified. “I know when I was a young girl, before I met your father,” her mom paused to swallow hard her eyes glistening, “there was a boy who used to follow me around the school yard, and I wasn’t any older than you.”

 

“Mom.” Katniss interrupted. “There aren’t any boys that follow me around at school.” Or even look at me, she thought. “And I’m not really interested in any of them. But if anything changes, I’ll talk to you.” She promised knowing it wasn’t really true, and the look her mom gave her told her she knew it too.

 

 


End file.
